In Bush's recent interview with Charlie Gibson, he said he regretted the intelligence was wrong on Iraq because "people had their reputations on the line." He didn't care that the "wrong intelligence" helped cause a war that has killed hundreds of thousands. His and other's reputations had been damaged.
Gibson pushed him, said, in effect, "What I meant was, if the intelligence had been correct, would we have gone to war?" Bush said, "Oh, I see what you mean. That's an interesting question." An interesting question, indeed. One that hadn't occurred to Bush. When he said he wished that the intelligence had been correct he meant that he wished Hussein really did have WMD so his and his friend's reputations would have remained intact. He didn't mean he wished that the intelligence had been correct, saying that Hussein had no WMD, so we maybe didn't have to invade.
This tells you everything you and future historians have to know about George Bush. He's a small, ignorant man. (But not really a man. What?)
Also, he doesn't seem to have any idea why the intelligence may have been wrong. He doesn't seem to know that Cheney cooked it. Bush is small, ignorant. A dupe, I think. He really doesn't seem to know anything. Or he's an unbelievable actor.
This crap just comes out of him like he's a true believer. I don't think he's putting it on. He really is dumb, a useful idiot for Cheney and friends.
Here's the key part of the transcript:
GIBSON: You've always said there's no do-overs as President. If you had one?
BUSH: I don't know -- the biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq. A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein. It wasn't just people in my administration; a lot of members in Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington D.C., during the debate on Iraq, a lot of leaders of nations around the world were all looking at the same intelligence. And, you know, that's not a do-over, but I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess.
GIBSON: If the intelligence had been right, would there have been an Iraq war?
BUSH: Yes, because Saddam Hussein was unwilling to let the inspectors go in to determine whether or not the U.N. resolutions were being upheld. In other words, if he had had weapons of mass destruction, would there have been a war? Absolutely.
GIBSON: No, if you had known he didn't.
BUSH: Oh, I see what you're saying. You know, that's an interesting question. That is a do-over that I can't do. It's hard for me to speculate.
Here's the transcript.